“Music demands before giving and only gives everything to those who have given everything”

interpret or transmit

– Should an orchestra conductor only transmit a score or, in addition, interpret it in his own way? –I just want to convey the composition of the author: being faithful to him is my priority. -Isn’t it inevitable to put part of himself when he directs the work of another? –The score is too important for me to allow me to introduce my quips. I’m not much of a composer: I don’t get to compose; but there are very good people composing and I am delighted to pass on their talent. –How to be completely faithful to the score that it transmits? –Not only directing the orchestra, but also counting on the acoustics and the emotional moment we are experiencing. Now, for example, I perceive an audience affected by the war and I take it into account.

Why did you become an orchestra conductor?

I studied piano and violin and wanted to be a pianist, until one day I went to listen to Daniel Barenboim at the Palau de la Música…

What concert was it?

Beethoven’s 3rd and then the 5th. And it was listening to the 5th when I decided to be an orchestra conductor. I was 19 years old and I was in the henhouse of the Palau and I told myself that it didn’t matter if one day I managed to lead an orchestra or if that gave me a living or not: I wanted to be a director.

Why had he studied music before?

Because my grandfather was a mattress maker on Enrique Granados street and he would hear a piano rehearse… It was Alicia de la Rocha, who made him fall in love with music. And my grandfather got me hooked.

Did someone try to dissuade you?

My parents encouraged me. And I have achieved it. I am 42 years old and I live for and directing an orchestra. I am head of the Franz Schubert Filharmonia; I live in Tarragona with my partner, a music teacher; and thanks to music we support a family with two children.

Congratulations.

I choose repertoires, soloists, guest directors and I direct half of all the scheduled concerts… I’m happy.

And what do the gestures that the director makes in concert and us in the shower mean?

They all have a very specific meaning.

What do the director’s hands say?

On the one hand you show the compass in advance, what are called the figures. You can make the figure smaller (loose, flat) or larger (strong).

Do you draw the compass in the air?

And that figure can be more chopped or more linked. I can make the figure higher or lower, make the music sound closer to me or further away… Or make everything global.

How?

You can address a section of the orchestra; to the string or to the metal… Or to the soloist. And then there is the interpretation of the hands: the dominant hand, in my case right hand, marks more the figures and the other is more for the details.

I’ll keep that in mind when directing in the shower. And the musicians look at the score and the director?

The director controls everything. And sometimes I make them look at me, because I need to capture their attention more or less as each moment of the concert demands.

From whom have you learned to lead?

Celibidache delved into musical phenomenology; Karajan was a visionary in technology applied to music; Barenboim is for me something personal; and Muti, with his intermezzo from the Rustic cavalry dedicated to the Virgin… La, la, laaaaaa.

They’re watching us, director.

I get emotional every time I remember it. I am a believer and when I listen to the intermezzo even more so. By itself it has its own entity, but in the middle of the opera… Ah!

Is the orchestra direction old?

The longer you’ve been listening to the greats, the more music you have inside to stream. Years in music add up.

How?

Actually, experience multiplies. We have 60 concerts a year, in addition to the five rehearsals a week. Each concert usually lasts between an hour and a half and two…

Why are concerts getting shorter and shorter?

This is what the public is asking for and it is worrying, because it shows that the fragmented consumption of content to which digitization accustoms us diminishes our ability to listen.

Does this mean that they also diminish our ability to know and learn?

And it’s deadly for classical music, which sometimes demands patient attention to give us in return revealing moments that turn your life around, like Beethoven turned mine.

And digitization promotes spasmodic attention and does not educate the good?

Quality music demands patience to culminate in a gratification that easy three-minute pop doesn’t give you.

Does good music demand your time?

Good music demands before giving and only gives everything to those who give everything. On the other hand, digitization favors the accelerated consumption of sounds, which is lethal for the ability to listen and the emotional construction that a quality piece achieves… if you give it time.

What is the most demanding thing about directing?

I spend my life in solitude studying scores and my only instrument is to listen to them in my mind. Conducting a symphony requires weeks of solo study until conducting it for the first time with the orchestra… and only then do you check if the study has served you. Or not.

And in the orchestra there are 80 musicians…

Each one with his trade and vision of the work. When I’m invited to conduct another orchestra, it’s like going as Manchester coach for just one game: an adventure.

Is it just the classical music circuit?

It is a market: sometimes it sells fashion and other times, merit.

–